"I don't know what to believe, honestly I don't. From her being little she was always a terror. But she's still my daughter and there's times when I sit here on my own and cry."

Distraught Mrs Easter told how she was worried for her daughter's children. She said: "She changed for the worse when she married Richard, but they are both as bad as each other.

"It's the children I feel sorry for and I think Kelly-Cher is going to be like her mother."

Mum-of-four Anne-Marie, 47, and her third husband Richard, 50, married more than 10 years ago. The pair, who have one daughter together, left for Spain two years ago just after Mrs Easter came out of hospital where she had been recovering from a stroke.

Mrs Easter said: "I don't know why Anne-Marie decided to go to Spain. I don't know how they've been managing over there because Anne-Marie liked gallivanting and going clubbing. She never had what you could call a job, and Richard used to be a taxi driver in Whitley Bay, but he's not worked for years."

Details of the inquiry in Spain were being kept secret following an order by the judge in charge of the investigation.

Little is known about the victim, Diana Dyson, but she is believed to have lived alone at the resort for some time.

Police said the Monteith's had known Ms Dyson for a while and that they had found 179 pieces of jewellery belonging to the victim at the Monteith's home in nearby Benalmadena.

Monteith was living at Whitley Bay Caravan Park when he was down on his luck for three months in 1995. But he inherited money when his mum Iris died about four years ago, and he moved to Torremolinos with Anne-Marie.

The pair lived the life of ex-pats in the Arroyo de la Meil area, known as Little England.

Margaret Brown, 56, moved to Torremolinos 13 years ago and now owns the Talk of the Tyne bar.

She met the Monteiths in October when they came to view her three-bedroom town house for 31,000,000 pesetas - worth around &#xA3;120,000.

Margaret, from Shiremoor, said: "They were very well dressed and dripping with gold and seemed very confident."

Former neighbours in Bourne Avenue, Fenham, described Richard Monteith as a Walter Mitty character.

The Monteiths had lived in the rented semi for a few years until late last summer.